Wounds
by kandora
Summary: "He kissed Imaizumi's cheeks while telling him the things he'd never before put to words even inside his own head. Waking nightmares that he'd filled his head with during these thousands of sleepless nights here in his own private corner of hell. He let Imaizumi share in his anguish; he made suffering a form of love." Prison AU. Midousuji/Imaizumi.


Walking along an endless stone corridor, passing beside rows and rows of empty prison cells, the guard's heavy boots echoing on the stone, Imaizumi found his mind going blank. Nothing mattered any more. He'd reached the end of the line.

As they arrived at the end of the corridor, the guard silently opened the barred door to a single cell. A harsh push on his back sent Imaizumi sprawling on the cold floor, his teeth biting into his tongue painfully, drawing out blood. Lacking the will to stand up, get on his feet, yell at the guard, or stand up to himself, Imaizumi remained lying on the floor as he heard the bars shutting behind him. He heard the key turning in the lock, sealing shut the barrier between his former life and his new one, and then the guard's footsteps hurrying away.

Imaizumi weakly clambered into a sitting position, hugging his arms tightly around his knees. He was already shivering, either out of cold or dread. How did he end up here? He couldn't deny having become the sort of person who deserved to live out his life in a place like this. Stretching his hand out in front of him, Imaizumi ran his fingers along the cement wall. He'd have plenty of time to replay everything in his mind, over and over again. Time mattered little in a place like this. Already Imaizumi found his grasp of time slipping away from him, and he wondered if it had been ten minutes or an hour since he'd heard the guard turn on his heels and walk away, leaving him here to rot.

A weak sound forced itself out from Imaizumi's throat. A tired chuckle that might as well have been a sob. At that moment it could've gone either way. He might have burst out laughing or crying at the unreality of his situation, but then something caught Imaizumi's attention at the other side of his vision. Beyond the bars that separated one cell from the next, someone was slightly stirring. Having previously sat there unmoving, the sole occupant of the room next to Imaizumi's perked up his head and listened.

Imaizumi found his breath taken away at the sight of whom he found sitting there. His outline was only barely visible against the shadows of the corner in which he was sitting, but it was unmistakably him.

_Midousuji._

That name carried within it every ounce of the hate and disgust Imaizumi had come to carry in his thoughts over the last... God, how many years had it been?

"Midousuji."

Imaizumi uttered the name from between clenched teeth, half a greeting, half a curse. He hid his hands behind his back to prevent Midousuji from seeing their shaking, but that was all in vain. His whole body had given in to violent shudders.

Midousuji stared straight back at him. His body had changed from when Imaizumi had last seen him. He looked even lankier than before, almost skeletal now, and his eyes stood out from sunken pits deep in his skull. The eyes themselves still looked the same.

Midousuji's face lit up in recognition, his gaze still unnerving, and his smile a rictus.

"I see you ended up here, too."

Midousuji's voice was obviously weakened from years of unuse, but it still sent a shock up Imaizumi's spine.

"Long time no see," he grinned. "Yowaizumi-kun."

* * *

Imaizumi cracked his eyelids open against the dimness. His heart was thumping. Though he found himself lying on the cold floor, he was covered in sweat. What had he dreamt about...? He couldn't manage to call up anything specific, but the fragmented memories made his heart race faster and his hands feel cold.

Turning on his side towards the bars that separated his cell and Midousuji's, he saw the other man sitting upright. Midousuji was wide awake, sitting with his back against the wall.

It was always dark in these prison cells, so it made little difference here whether it was day or night outside. Having spent several days in the murky cell, however, Imaizumi had found his eyes growing accustomed to the low lighting. He took a closer look at Midousuji now.

Imaizumi's eyes kept being drawn to those big, round eyes with dark circles below them. How long had those black rings been there? In his thoughts he'd always seen those as cruel eyes, devoid of any compassion or humanity. Now they seemed to be coloured with weariness and something else, too... a loneliness that had long since sunken past the surface. Midousuji sat so unbelievably still, so motionless that it was hard to believe he was even alive.

Midousuji's eyes flicked towards Imaizumi's with a rapid movement just as soon as he became aware of being watched. His mouth twisted into a humourless grin, one that Imaizumi could tell was just a mockery of his former smile.

"Trouble sleeping?" Midousuji asked, almost softly.

He let out a strange noise, part cackle, part a sigh.

"Me too." Midousuji streched his lower eyelid down to reveal bloodshot eyes with veins crawling in every direction along his huge milky-white orb of an eyeball. "It's been so long now."

Watching Midousuji huddled up against the wall, knees to his chest, staring into empty spaces, a terrible thought occurred to Imazumi. They were one and the same now, Midousuji and him.

Remembering what the other man had done, it made him want to pound his fists to the wall in anger at the world... but then he remembered what he himself had done, and found he lacked the strength and will to fight back and scream.

Midousuji looked at Imaizumi's trembling form, studying his features peacefully, almost fondly. He crawled up next to the bars that separated them and reached out his bony hand at Imaizumi from between them.

"I'm just as cold as you are, Yowaizumi-kun," Midousuji whispered, a glint of wickedness flashing on his face. "Why don't you come over here."

There was something in the way in which Midousuji voiced his request that made Imaizumi instictively creep closer to him, while at the same time wanting to run away. Imaizumi rose and slowly walked up to where Midousuji was sitting. He grabbed hold of the bars between them and sank on his knees, feeling faint. Midousuji was so near. Imaizumi sat close, listening to his breathing. As he felt Midousuji's fingers brushing his hair away from his eyes and cupping his cheek, he closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. Lately, Imaizumi had begun to find comfort in the strangest places. He opened his eyes again and studied Midousuji's face.

Imaizumi wondered just what could it have been that had driven Midousuji to do what he had done. There had to be something. After all, Imaizumi himself had not turned out this way for nothing.

"Midousuji," Imaizumi whispered breathlessly, entangling his fingers with the other's between the metal bars.

"Yes?" Midousuji replied, tensing in anticipation of what was to come.

Imaizumi shut his eyelids tight to fight back against the tears. He gripped Midousuji's hand tighter, and uttered a simple question into the silence.

"Why?"

A long moment passed. After a while, Imaizumi forced himself to look up at Midousuji's face to ensure the other man had heard his question. Seeing the expression on Midousuji's face, Imaizumi flinched. He had.

* * *

For five years, Imaizumi had thought he hated Midousuji with all his might. But with each passing day, every hour he spent here in the company of dimness and stillness and Midousuji, he found that hate twisting into something else.

Every night, when he couldn't sleep, Imaizumi would come to sit beside him. And Midousuji would lean forward and whisper in his ear, telling Imaizumi everything about him, his nightmares and his fears. And he would whisper about the reason for his madness, what had made him who he was, and about everything he had felt about Imaizumi. Midousuji made sure to sharpen every word into a knife, twisting everything into hate, telling Imaizumi things he never wanted to hear. But he did ask, and so Imaizumi had no right to refuse to listen.

And Midousuji mercilessly continued his whispering, hurting Imaizumi and hurting himself. He kissed Imaizumi's cheeks while telling him the things he'd never before put to words even inside his own head. Waking nightmares that he'd filled his head with during these thousands of sleepless nights here in his own private corner of hell. He let Imaizumi share in his anguish; he made suffering a form of love.

"You and I used to be so different," Midousuji breathed into Imaizumi's neck while running his fingers along his chest. "But now we're the same."

Midousuji watched as a teardrop formed in the corner of Imaizumi's eye, the first one since after that day five years ago. Midousuji licked the drop of salty water before it could fall on Imaizumi's cheek.

"We're the same, and now we'll always be together."


End file.
